Category Archives: That’s Janky

Here’s an interesting little story for you. A bit over a month ago, I walked to my car early one morning prior to my 45 minute commute (hate it).  Before I got in, I noticed something was… off.  I couldn’t quite figure it out, so I got in, and drove away.

Four inches later, I felt something very wrong with the wheel.  I thought, perhaps there was something under the car, causing a drag or something.  So I got out, looked around.  Didn’t see anything, got back in, and drove off.

Five inches later, I knew something was very wrong.  I looked closely at a wheel and noticed the lug nuts were loose.  A second later I realized the hubcaps were missing!  I recall thinking, “what is this, Detroit circa 1974???”  When I went to the trunk, I couldn’t find the jack kit, but I thought maybe we had accidentally moved it into the apartment.  Luckily another Civic driver pulled up a few cars away, and he let me borrow his to tighten the lug nuts.

I decided at first not to bother with insurance, figuring new hubcaps would just get stolen again. 

About a week ago, my wife took the car in to get the tires rotated.  When I took the car in the evening, I noticed a massive pull to the right. I asked my wife about it, she thought it needed to be ‘broke in’ a little bit (much like her shoes), but I assumed the rotation had messed up the alignment.

Earlier this week we dropped the car off for a wheel alignment, but the dealer informed us immediately that it was not an alignment problem.  The problem was the fact that the wheels were not the ones that come with the car!

The fact that thieves stole my tires is somewhat surprising, as I live in a decent residential part of San Francisco.

The fact that thieves stole my tires and left other tires in their place, not to mention the lug nuts, is just plain weird in my book.  Looks like I got hit by the most polite thieves around…

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Went out for dinner the other night with my wife and some colleagues.  Had a great meal at a decently pricey restaurant, and pretty much the moment I hit about $30 or so per head, I expect good service. While it wasn’t bad, it certainly wasn’t good service. But overall, all was well until the bill came.  Then we agreed to put it on two of our cards, splitting it 40/60 (you know, one of us paid for 2, the other for 3 – but if this didn’t make sense, nor will the rest of my story).  The waitress (if stewardesses are now flight attendants, why aren’t waitresses food or restaurant attendants?) came by, we said 40%-60%, she wandered off.

About 5 minutes later she returned, needing a reminder as she recalled us saying 80-20, but didn’t think that was accurate.  We reiterated the split, and she expressed her confusion on it.  I made a quick guess at the number, but really wasn’t in a “calculating mood” and honestly wanted the service – at this point it was clearly an issue of principle (its the principalities of it!).  Several minutes later she returned with the bill split exactly at my guess number (wrong by about 5%).  Ugh.

At this point, both myself and colleague were annoyed.  We reiterated the split, and she complained “but you told me something different!”  I disagreed and she then said, and I quote, “we don’t have any calculators here, just the computer”.

Are you kidding me?!?

First of all, there’s the audacity to complain that the restaurant can charge $10 for a bottle of still water, but doesn’t have the capacity to do basic math.  Second of all, does she mean to say that not only is this type of math beyond her, nobody else at the restaurant could do it?  While my colleague did the work on PAPER, I pulled out my mobile phone to show the built-in calculator it included. 

The worst part was yet to come, as the restaurant’s new computer system didn’t allow cancellations (yeah, sure), so they had to issue a second check, one with a refund to my card and and additional charge to the others.  Pathetic to the nth degree.

As a favor to other diners, I hereby provide JT’s guide to calculating something as blindingly simple as 40% of anything else.  For your convenience, I will do it with none of that complication division stuff.  I will leave it somewhat condescending, as I feel that’s how it should be described to one who needs this kind of help:

1. Take your target percent, for this case we’ll call it 40%, and get rid of the “0”.  This gives our example the number 4.
2. Multiple the bill by this number.  If your bill is, say $150, and your target is 40%, you are doing 150 * 4.  Yes, it’s 600.
3. Now, remove the last “0” again.  In our example, we are at $60
4. That’s it!
5. Advanced topic: how to figure out the balance for the other card…

1. Subtract the 40% number from the total.  In this example, it’s $150 – $60, for a total of… uh… hmm… I dunno, something carry the zero?

Ok, so I get the numbers, and I understand that it only takes about one hit per billion emails sent to make it worthwhile to send spam.  I don’t like it, but I get it.  Personally, I’d like to at least opt out of the lists that don’t make any sense for me to be on (I will never buy Office XP for $79.99, nor do I need another University Diploma, and I am pretty sure that the Gap has enough secret shoppers already), although I guess that’s wishful thinking.

I also understand using crafty subject lines such as “Fw: this is something you had to see” when sent to me by someone with a slightly unusual name, like Gretchen Tinsley.  I also thought “Thanks for being a good friend” from Morton Ruiz was clever enough to take a look at (read: I was duped).  But recently I’ve received numerous emails with subject lines such as “Re: my VALLtvUM” or “Re: before the be11 news”.

In fact, the VALLtvUM email body started like this:

A M B B / E N
V A L L / U M
C / A L L / S
V / A G G R A
X ^ N N A X
M E R / D D / A
S O M M ^
P R R O Z ^ C
L E V V / T R A

And then had a link to http://www.ruewunsuereion.com, and despite knowing it was going to be bad, I figured I had to take a look.  Turns out it’s a site offering tons of the above drugs (although spelled correctly, for the most part) at discount prices.  By the way, A M B B / E N is killer for long-haul flights.

You know, it’s one thing to trick me into opening porn, or maybe buying crappy software or a fake university diploma.  Furthermore, I can understand looking for and purchasing discount drugs on the Internet (remember, I said I can understand, that doesn’t mean I plan to do it). But here’s what I don’t get:

Who on Earth would even consider buying medication from someone who can’t spell it right?  This stuff can kill you, man!

Maybe it’s time to head to Walgreens to buy B3n^dryl or ad/1L, and while you are there, don’t forget to pick up some extra 5c0pe and |

It’s all about basic needs. The desire to feel safe is one of these needs. That’s why we can find many products which promise our full security. There are also many devices which keep safe our money, valuables and other special things. People usually choose rather common and standard places to hide their precious things. That’s burglars can usually find all your “secrets” and leave you empty-handed. To protect yourself you’re usually better not keeping valuables at home, but you can’t move everything to the bank! For this case check out the secret socket’s offering.

As you can see, this fake socket is a mini safe. I like the idea, but I doubt that it’s the modern way to hide one’s valuables. The market offers so many solutions to keep valuable things in a safe that this socket is unlikely to be the best one. Anyway, everybody is free to choose what works best for them.

Ok, I can be a bit less strict. Actually, I see the obvious advantage of using this mini safe: the potential thief needs at least a screwdriver to open this. On the other hand, they manage to force open most modern safes.

Do you think that they won’t guess how to handle the simple socket?

Of course, at first they have to guess that it’s not quite simple device and has its little secret. But after such extensive advertising on the Internet maybe it won’t be difficult…

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